I recommend to the agents I coach that they don’t just put it in writing, but put as much care into the presentation and design of it as they would a flyer or newsletter. Just the fact that you take the time to do that shows sellers that this is an important piece to you, and you take the marketing of their property very seriously.

Then, no matter what other information you choose to include, I recommend you include the following 2 items:

Your standards for communication - That is one of the most common complaints that people make about their agent – “I never heard from them, and had no idea what was going on with my property.” So write that into your marketing plan. How do you communicate, and how often? What can they expect from you? Will you follow up once a week by phone, regardless of whether there was activity or not? Or, will you email them regularly, but only call if feedback or answers are needed from them? Every client (and agent) is different, so whatever way you work is okay, but with that written into your marketing plan, you’ll usually attract clients that are better fitted to you. So if you make phone calls every week, but they’re really busy and don’t want that much contact, it’s not a good fit, and you’ll know that from the start.

Your standards for accountability – different agents have different ways of marketing a property, so it can be confusing on the sellers end if they’re not even sure what you’re doing for them. By providing them a list of most of the precise tasks you’ll be doing in order to sell their property (open house, posting their listing on certain websites, etc.), they can see the impressive amount of work you’ll be doing on their behalf and feel confident in their choice of you as their agent. Plus, it often means that less follow-up is required on your part, since they can often see a lot of the work being done. So it can save you time, while improving the client experience.

Finally, think about updating the plan every 30 days or so, and sending it to them. This allows you the flexibility to adjust the plan if needed. Plus, you can include past items as completed, crossed off or with a checkmark, to remind them of the work that’s already been done. This helps cement their confidence in you during the process, even if the property hasn’t sold yet.

You work hard for your clients, and adding these items to your marketing plan helps to show them that! Plus, it makes it easy to set them up for referrals, because they’ll know exactly what their friends and family can expect while working with you.

Unfortunately, though, with all those different sites it can be easy to lose track of what you’ve done.

I’ve created a Marketing Checklist for New Listings, which makes it easy to ensure  you’ve posted your property on all the sites you normally use, and easily keep track of what has been done. It also makes it easy to pass off to an assistant, since all the steps and sites are laid out. Plus, it serves as a handy sheet to use in marketing to sellers – they can see that you’re actively promoting their property.

Feel free to download and use in your own marketing! To download just “right-click” on the link below and Save to your computer.

Marketing Checklist for New Listings

There are great examples for other types of local businesses, but what really caught my eye is a tool Nathan mentioned called TwitHawk. Maybe I’ll do a more in-depth post on using it later (after I play with it for a while), but check out the full post. Twit Hawk looks like it has a lot of potential for you to find local people discussing

• how tired they are of their apartment
• considering looking for a home
• recent job transfer/new job in your area
• needing more space
• etc.

Now remember, you are not going to see positive results if you jump in and try to sell them on using you as a Realtor®. At best, they’ll ignore you, and at worst they might block you, or even tell their friends. BUT, if you have some tips for them (maybe in the form of a blog post, free ebook, etc.), it would be acceptable to say something like “Hi @twitterperson, I have a blog post at www.myblogposthere.com with some good info for first-time homebuyers – feel free to check it out.” Low pressure contact like this is acceptable, or you could even just give them a warm welcome to the area, or recommend a listing you just listed that sounds perfect (but make sure it really does!).

So check out the post, see what you think of TwitHawk, and I’d love to hear how it helps your biz!

Read the full post to get the full picture of how Yelp has grown by creating an iPhone app.

You may not have thought about trying to get clients to provide a review of you as a real estate agent on sites Yelp, Google and Yahoo, but why not? It gives you more credibility if they’re doing a simple search for real estate agents. It gives you more spots to be found in the search engines. And since these are public review, you can probably take them and use them on your site if you like (haven’t checked into the legality of this, so don’t hold me to it, but if they left you a good review, they’d probably be happy to have you use it on your site, so just ask).

Now, I’m no mobile marketing professional, so if you are looking for more info on reaching potential and current clients on their cell phones, you can read more about it at “What is Mobile Marketing Anyway?”

But our Web 2.0 Wrap-up for today is actually a post from MyTechOpinion on a brand new iPhone app from Realtor.com. As NikNik mentions,

Agents that already utilize Realtor.com to post their listings will be able to sync with their account via the app. Branding and contact information is carried over so that interested buyers can easily reach out to the agent, or even add the agent to their iPhone address book. In fact, an interested buyer can contact the listing agent in a number of ways with a single tap: ask a question, call agent directly, visit agent Website.

If you are already using Realtor.com to post your listings, I can’t see why you WOULDN”T take advantage of this new app. So many people access the internet via their cell phone, you want to be able to be the agent that gives them the ability to view listings and share with friends on Twitter and Facebook through their mobile device. So check out NikNik’s post, then go sync your Realtor.com account, and pass the word along to your clients and friends!

Here are a few ideas:

• Put together a list of local contractors (carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, interior decorators, etc.) you know and trust, and who are fairly priced. Send to your list (works even better if you can get coupons from your contractors, who will appreciate the business) with a note about wanting to help keep a few extra dollars in their budget.

• Collect a yearly calendar of fun, free events in your community. Your note can mention that having fun and making memories does not always require money to be spent.

• Create a page on your website with a bunch of YouTube videos showing easy, DIY projects they can do around their home to improve home value, and send the link out via email.

• On the business end of things, think about professional contacts you know that would benefit by being introduced. Then pick up the phone or jump on your email and introduce them. They’ll appreciate it, and remember you for it.

A lot of these might be things they could do on their own, but they’ll appreciate that you took the time to put them all together in one easy place. It shows that you’re thinking of them, and care about them beyond just “making the commission”.

1. It’s a VERY good thing to have your listings dynamically updating straight from your MLS, as it keeps the property search on your site fresh and up to date without you having to manually input your listings onto your site all the time.
2. From what I’ve seen, IDX has been somewhat hard to implement on Wordpress, especially if you don’t have a tech person.

But Diverse Solutions, a provider of IDX services, has just launched a new plugin for Wordpress users. Very cool!  Jay over at the Geek Estate Blog goes into lots of detail, and it looks like they’ve really got things figured out (especially for SEO purposes). So if you’ve been wanting to add a real-time property search to your site, head on over and read the full post. And if you’re already using Diverse Solutions and Wordpress, run (don’t walk) and grab that plugin! It looks like it will make your life a lot easier and your site a lot more Google friendly.

One tool that I used, and recommend a lot here on my blog, is sending unexpected gifts to your clients. Rather than spend my marketing budget on newspaper ads and other things that were industry standard, but didn’t seem to consistently generate business, I spent those dollars on treating past, current and potential clients like gold.

Here is another gift idea that can be used  as a gift for clients that have just closed with you, and is really appreciated: People who buy a home (or sold with you and will most likely be moving into a new home) almost always have the desire to turn this house into a home. Whether they ever decorated or remodeled in a previous house, most unconsciously have big plans for their new home. So a 1 or 2 year subscription gift to a high-quality magazine like Architectural Digest gets them excited.

This does several things:

• You’re surprising them with a gift, so you’re front of mind again
• The gift is related to their home, and offers value by giving them ideas, tips and information they can use for their home
• Most people will put this magazine on their coffee table, where they’ll see and be reminded of you. In fact, if you’re able to get the publisher to put a gift label on the magazines – something like “Compliments of Rich Rogala, Realtor®”, they’re likely to tell their friends and family about you as well.
• Finally, this gift will land in their mailbox every month, and they’ll continuously be reminded of you. If you’re keeping in touch in other ways too, you’re very likely to generate a lot of referrals from this one client, and will be the Realtor® they think of the next time they’re ready to move.

“…the cumulative traffic gained from dozens of these sorts of micro-topic articles will easily outweigh the gains from high-demand search terms. And, more importantly, this traffic will target and attract more read-to-act buyers.”

Check out his post, then think about ways you can talk about not just your city, but how you can answer potential clients questions about your neighborhood, your housing specialty or any specific topic you know concerns the people you want to connect with.

Reading this book made me shift my sales mentality and really focus on my clients. It’s not that I didn’t have focus before, it’s just that Godin forced me to think about my marketing in a very different light. To learn more, check out his book here.

Rich Rogala

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